Report Card

Regular
readers of this column know that I occasionally use it to rail about the
state of customer service in the boating business. Well, actually I don’t
rail–I’m merely the messenger. Almost every month PMY
hears from readers describing everything from minor service gripes to
flat-out horror stories. More disturbing is that over the past few years,
their frequency has increased, leading me to suspect that the general
level of service throughout the boating business is decreasing.

Nearly every time I
write about service I get a return salvo from dealers and industry representatives
decrying my negativity and assuring me that there is no problem–but
if there is, it’s getting better. We all just need to be a little
more patient. Well, patience is fine until you’re the one who’s
sitting on the dock some Friday afternoon with family, friends, and an
engine that won’t start, and you’ve been told no one can get
to you for a week.

Clearly my opinion on
this subject is based mainly on anecdotes, and just as clearly, someone
who is the victim of poor service is more likely to write than someone
who enjoys prompt, affordable service. But even if that’s true, builders
who are selling to people paying a quarter-million dollars and up–PMY’s
core audience–should have nothing short of a zero-tolerance policy
when it comes to service problems.

There is also evidence
from another source that perhaps things are not all they should be in
the boat-service world. In July J.D. Power & Associates, best known
for its customer-satisfaction rankings of automobiles, released its first-ever
rankings for boats. The results have limited applicability to PMY
readers, since they cover brands between 16 and 26 feet (the median boat
length for PMY readers’ primary boat is about 34 feet), but
they nevertheless should concern you.

The study found a direct
correlation between complaints and boat cost: The higher the price, the
fewer the reported problems. Contrast that with Power’s 2000 study
on initial quality in the automotive industry. In eight of the 14 segments
surveyed, Toyota products ranked first. These did include pricey Lexus
models, but also earning top honors were the low-priced Corolla and midpriced
Sienna. Apparently the automotive industry has found a way to make quality
a philosophical rather than an economic proposition.

Frank Forkin, who oversees
Power’s surveys for boats, also told Soundings Trade Only
that a third of all reported problems were engine-related, specifically
hard starting, rough idle, stalling, and lack of power. That latter complaint
was supposedly related to buyers selecting less-powerful engines to save
money, but I wondered about the others, so I called a few service people
from some of the major builders and dealers. Most claimed that such engine-related
complaints account for about half of all consumer complaints and pointed
out that in terms of severity, they presented a far greater challenge
for obvious reasons. Many also took the opportunity to complain that in
many cases, it was the engine companies’ (or more accurately their
distributors’) lack of timely response to these problems that led
to dissatisfied customers. True or not, dealerships are by no means blameless.
Indeed, Forkin cites dealer service as a prime problem area among boaters,
which again contrasts with the automotive arena where although Lexus again
ranks first, Saturn comes in second, and Daewoo is fourth.

I don’t mean to
imply that bad service is epidemic. The vast majority of our readers seem
satisfied with how they’re being treated. But there does seem to
be a small and apparently growing minority who are not. The fact that
this trend runs counter to that of the automotive industry, where both
initial quality and service have been steadily improving over the last
decade, should concern anyone who owns or plans to buy a boat.